Trial for 2006 murder begins

Katrina evacuee accused

Posted: Wednesday, August 27, 2008

By Joe Johnson

Rodney Shepard showed up at a house in East Athens with another man, and moments later, a hooded gunman "assassinated" a man sleeping in the living room, a prosecutor told a Clarke County Superior Court jury Tuesday as he made opening statements in Shepard's murder trial.

Brian Patterson didn't say Shepard was the man who shot and killed 22-year-old David Lamarious "Morris" Lumpkin on Nov. 18, 2006, but called Shepard a "party to the crime."

Lumpkin was shot three times at the Moreland Avenue house, a revenge killing for an armed robbery Lumpkin committed five days earlier, said Patterson, chief assistant district attorney for the Western Judicial Circuit.

"David Lumpkin was killed because of a very serious choice he made, but he didn't deserve to die, to be assassinated," Patterson said.

Shepard, 39, incriminates himself in recorded conversations with his closest friend, a fellow Hurricane Katrina refugee who relocated to Athens, who also told police where Shepard and another man hid the murder weapon, Patterson said.

Shepard also admitted he had a role in Lumpkin's murder when Athens-Clarke detectives questioned him in New Orleans, where he fled after the murder and was arrested on a shoplifting charge.

A neighbor has said he saw Shepard and alleged accomplice Eric Martin Hassel running from the Moreland Avenue house immediately after shots rang out, but the man wouldn't make the same statement to investigators, Patterson said.

Shepard's attorney called his client a fall guy for the murder, suggesting to jurors that the man Lumpkin had robbed orchestrated the killing.

Lumpkin and another masked man shot at and robbed Terrence Terrell White, or "T-White," as he arrived home on Highland Park Drive the night of Nov. 13, 2006, defense attorney Ryan Swingle told jurors.

White was "hell bent" on revenge, and he recruited Hassel "to help him to get to David Lumpkin," the attorney said.

Hassel went to Lumpkin's home off Barnett Shoals Road the night of the murder, trying to get him outside to talk, Swingle told jurors, but Lumpkin refused. As Lumpkin drove away, he saw a car resembling White's parked nearby, Swingle said.

When Lumpkin arrived at the Moreland Avenue house, Hassel already was there, but Lumpkin again refused to talk to him, the defense attorney said.

Hassel later returned with Shepard to ask about drugs, and Shepard lingered a while to talk to another man on the porch, Swingle said.

Shepard was walking toward the Nellie B Homes housing complex where he stayed with his friend from New Orleans when he heard shots ring out, Swingle said.

White and Hassel were at the apartment when Shepard arrived, arguing about what to do with the weapon, according to Swingle.

White promised to get Hassel and Shepard out of town if they would dispose of the gun, Swingle said.